Sydney is now having its wettest October in 165 years of records, making this the city’s third record-breaking month of rainfall in 2022.

Sydney’s Observatory Hill weather station has been collecting daily rainfall observations since 1858. In this 165-year observation period, we have seen nothing that even comes close to 2022.

Wettest October

As of 9am on Monday, October 24, Sydney had received 271.8 mm of rain since the beginning of this month. This was close to the city’s October monthly record of 285 mm from 1987.

But with the familiar sight of rain soaking eastern NSW on Monday morning, it didn’t take long for Sydney to amass the extra 13.2 mm it needed to match its October record.

By 10:40am on Monday, Sydney’s running monthly total had reached 286.8 mm, making this the city’s wettest October in 165 years of records.

Trio of record-wet months

October is now the third month to set a new rainfall record in Sydney during 2022, joining July (404 mm) and March (554 mm).

These three record-breaking months can be seen clearly as abrupt steps in the 2022 accumulated rainfall line on the graph below.

Sydney’s running annual rainfall had reached a whopping 2387.6 mm by 10:40am on Monday, October 24. This is easily its wettest year in records dating back to 1859, beating 2194 mm from 1950.

Remarkably, Monday morning’s rain has also put Sydney into the top five annual rainfall totals on record for any Australian capital city. The only capital that beats Sydney’s 2022 annual total is Darwin, which has seen up to 2776.6 mm in one year.